Invisible Man wrote:
I have a laptop with no Windows license (apart from a PC with Windows 7
64 bit and a PC with XP SP3).

Thought I might try Linux. Is Ubuntu the easiest and most stable to
start with?

Bit less stable than say Debian Stable.

Whiuch distro you use is *almost* irrelevant.


Any advice on pitfalls etc.


Just try and see. Use the OS you have to download and burn a lot of
distros, and simply install away.

The pitfalls are not distro specific, and are generally hardware
related. Some support for some hardware is patchy, tricky, or nonexistent.

The distro represents a bunch of peoples favorite ways of selecting
collating and distributing what amounts to standard source packages
across nearly all platforms. EWhat they do is ensure that that code is
all mutually compatible, and precompiled, that's all.


One issue thats a bit of a current bugbear, is 64 bit flash plug-ins.
Simply not available for Linux in the new incarnation, and somewhat
flawed in the old.



Laptop has a 30 day install of XP on the c drive. Do I use another
partition for the linux software and the third for other files?


If its only 30 days, wipe it and start again.

I wouldn't bother partitioning - just back everything up on a USB stick
till you know what your final configuration will be.

Assuming you are committed to ending up with Linux.


TIA for any replies. I have been using MS Windows PCs since 3.1 and
anticipate a steep learning curve.

Its not too bad. Mostly stuff just works. It will be the odd case when
it doesn't that will floor you.